So what I’ve learned about French spelling is that if there’s a word that’s in both French and English, the way you spell it is that you imagine you’re writing that word with the mindset that you’re making fun of French spelling because surely no word is spelled this way and then you’ve spelled it correctly.
Italy is spelled like Italie, which is exactly how I’d spell it if I was joking.
Journalist? Journaliste.
A criminal? Un criminel.
An hour? Une heure.
As a native french speaker I’m so confused about how the spelling is funny to english speakers. Is that why the english and french were historical rivals
The sounds and spellings of French don’t come naturally to us but also our languages have a lot in common so it looks like parts of our language shown back to us through a funhouse mirror.